moments in passing
by PallaPlease
Summary: [AK] A collection of unrelated sentences for the 1sentence challenge dwelling on the relationship between Aang and Katara.


**Disclaimer: **I do not claim ownership of any of the characters or ideas of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I make no profit with the posting of this collection.  
**Notes:** This is a collection of one-liners written for the livejournal theme-challenge community _1sentence_, the goal of which is to write a single sentence for each of fifty themes. None of the following sentences are directly related, though a few are thematically similar (for example: one and twenty). Crit is welcomed. :)

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**one: comfort**  
good-bye (hello)

In the great hall of the Fire Lord's palace she turned to him: "When you've finished," she said, touching his cheek, "when you've come back to us, I'll be here."

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**two: kiss**  
kindnesses

He kissed her only once, the sort between friends, a chaste touch to the corner of her mouth as she laughed at his joke (something about tempers, and princes); the next day he smiled when he ought and said what he should, and it did not hurt so deep when she married the prince.

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**three: soft**  
delicate

Katara inspired within him the sort of delicate yearning so vital to first love: gentle and exquisite; crumbling if held too tightly to the heart.

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**four: pain**  
dearest

What was it that stung most? the rough elegance of her hands, the shape of her throat, the way she said his name: Aang, trusted; Aang, beloved; Aang, friend.

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**five: potatoes**  
sweet

When the coin purse is fat enough she buys small things at market, trinkets and treats not particularly needed but quietly craved: a new knife for Sokka, a roll of ribbon for herself; for Aang a bag of candied potatoes, sticky sweet and warm.

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**six: rain**  
dripping

"Come inside," she says, gently, taking his hand: "You'll catch cold if you're out here too long."

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**seven: chocolate**  
pieces

"Try it," he said, "you'll like it," and laughed when she asked for another piece; larger, please.

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**eight: happiness**  
gentler dreams

Do you recall the warmth of another sleeping soft beside you; the slow, helpless, swelling joy of waking to a sweeter world?

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**nine: telephone**  
static

She says his name and it sounds to him as though from a great and terrible distance: Aang, Aang, look at me, wake up, _Aang_.

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**ten: ears**  
one beat, another

His heartbeat trembled in his ears, and when she smiled he thought his heart might burst.

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**eleven: name**  
mantra

Gyatso taught him the religion of names, the lilt and call necessary to each; when Aang spoke they were prayers: Gyatso, Kuzon, Bumi, Katara, Katara, Katara.

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**twelve: sensual**  
five

The tongue to taste, the nose to smell; the eye to see, the ear to hear; the hand, then, to touch, and beneath his fingers at her wrist the heart, beating -- very softly she says his name.

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**thirteen: death**  
in ceasing

She held his hand to her breast, knuckles to the beat of her heart, and though the film of her eyes burned, she did not cry.

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**fourteen: sex**  
grace

Aang is fifteen, Katara seventeen, both somewhere ungainly in the rough grace of burgeoning adulthood -- he reaches for her hand; "hello," she says, and he smiles.

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**fifteen: touch**  
repose

She thought to touch the soft skin at the nape of his throat, a pale line curving gracefully as he bowed his head.

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**sixteen: weakness**  
strength

"Don't worry," she told him, squeezing his arm gently, "I'm not about to be your weak flank, Aang."

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**seventeen: tears**  
honesty

A simplicity to her sorrow: she wept in silence, and dried her eyes, and soon again she would smile at him.

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**eighteen: speed**  
dash

"Keep up if you can," she tossed off, grinning over her shoulder, and Aang dug his toes in the dirt.

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**nineteen: wind**  
rise up

The wind cut her flesh, brought tears to her eyes; "Aang," she said -- the wind swallowed her words -- "Aang, please, listen to me, you have to listen to me," and all around her the wind: rising, screaming, devouring her whole.

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**twenty: freedom**  
good-bye (hello) redux

"It's over," he said, and she folded him into her arms, pressed her mouth to his cheek as he shook, said: "It's all right; I'm here -- it's all right."

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**twenty-one: life**  
simple

"It's not easy," she said, watching the light on his face, "but it's worth it, I think."

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**twenty-two: jealousy**  
the lady protests

"I'm not _jealous_," she snapped, and three feet behind Aang a jug of water exploded.

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**twenty-three: hands**  
sonata

Like him Katara has two hands, but there the similarities end: her fingers are graceful, and rough; the skin dark and cool; when she moves her hands it's like poetry -- fluttering, rising, swinging low on the note of her voice.

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**twenty-four: taste**  
sweeter things

He likes sugary things most, candies and certain sweet fruits; Katara tends more to the practical -- what's near, what fills her belly -- but when he asks, she accepts, and behind them a trail of peach pits.

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**twenty-five: devotion**  
ruth

"Where ever you go," she tells him, "I'll be with you."

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**twenty-six: forever**  
dust to dust

Life, death, and life again -- "I'll never forget you," he tells her, and who can say if he will?

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**twenty-seven: blood**  
beneath your fingernails

She mends flesh, bone, the long lines of muscle beneath and above; after, in the ash of the battlefield, he watches quietly as she douses her hands in water, washing and washing until the water turns to rust.

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**twenty-eight: sickness**  
mother

Am I dying? no, she says, smoothing a hand across his brow; no, I'm here with you.

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**twenty-nine: melody**  
memory like glass

She sang in the still of dusk: _clever moon, who birthed the sky; clever sun, who stole it back; clever earth, who saw them both_... -- how strange, that they remained the same songs he remembered from the bittersweet days a hundred years gone.

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**thirty: star**  
starlight

"There," he said, and she followed his finger to the faint, wavering light of a star lost in the dark.

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**thirty-one: home**  
remnants

This is what remains: puppets of ash and bone in place of the living and the loved; temples of metal workings and steam; a girl with dark hair and blue eyes and the sea at the end of her fingers.

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**thirty-two: confusion**  
taking offense

The sequestered childhood of a monk did little to teach Aang the workings of girls, much less girls from the _Water Tribes_ (though he wasn't quite sure what difference that made) -- "trust me," Sokka said, dryly, "you're never gonna figure out what makes 'em tick."

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**thirty-three: fear**  
darker dreams

She boils water for tea and he arranges tea leaves in the bottoms of their chipped pair of teacups; midnight, at the sleepless, dreamless center of the world, and when she pours the water she asks if he'd like to tell her.

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**thirty-four: lightning/thunder**  
raingirl

Storms roll in and storms roll out; always he finds her watching the rain fall, palms held up to the sky.

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**thirty-five: bonds**  
aware

How selfish: he wanted to touch her hair, count the number of fingers on each of her long hands; melt with the beating of her heart and in so doing forsake the world.

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**thirty-six: market**  
necessity

Beautiful things at market, strange things: glass bottles blown thin as ghosts, dried fruits sweeter than rain -- "not now," she tells him, counting apples to the copper, "we've only enough for food."

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**thirty-seven: technology**  
histories

This is the history of air, he tells her, which does not change but grows.

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**thirty-eight: gift**  
years

He sends her the seeds of twining trees in a blue silk bag; he sends her an oak box of small stones from a river; he sends her letters and they read: _I'm fine how are you it's cold where I am but there's hope I miss you love Aang._

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**thirty-nine: smile**  
shade

She smiled and turned away -- Katara, he wanted to say; Katara.

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**forty: innocence**  
heartburst

He loves her - that's all.

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**forty-one: completion**  
traveller

A week after the end of the world they skipped rocks out to sea -- "where to now?" she said, and he shrugged, handing her another stone as he said, "With you, I guess."

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**forty-two: clouds**  
pearls

At night a thousand miles above the ocean blue below, she taught him how to peel beads of water from clouds; "training," she explained, "for concentration," and rolled the beads to her fingertips with a long flick of her wrist.

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**forty-three: sky**  
the beholder

"Isn't it beautiful?" she said -- sunset turning the sky to fire; on the horizon the moon -- he looked to her and then the sky, and had no words he could say.

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**forty-four: heaven**  
side by side

"Hey," she says, gently, "it's about time you woke up, sleepyhead."

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**forty-five: hell**  
ever after

She learned to keep her eyes off the sky and her feet on the ground; when asked if she was Katara, the Katara, she would smile and shake her head and say no, she doesn't live here, I'm sorry.

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**forty-six: sun**  
drowsy

He curls up beside her in the morning: dawn turns her skin copper, his a softer shade of gold; where he ends she begins.

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**forty-seven: moon**  
sacred

Painful, the sharpness of the moonlight, the curve of her cheek as she turned from the sky.

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**forty-eight: waves**  
autumn sand

The tide rolled against her ankles in a cold froth and he laughed as she danced on her toes; "shut up," she said, holding her hand out to him, "and come on: it's not all bad."

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**forty-nine: hair**  
winding

He helped, once, braiding her hair -- aware, sharply, of the heat of her throat just beyond his fingers.

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**fifty: supernova**  
blossom

"Hey," he said, touching her cheek with his fingertips -- "hey," she said, and covered his hand with her own.

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end

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End file.
